


Dog Tags

by orphean



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15125873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphean/pseuds/orphean
Summary: After Hoshi's rescue, Trip goes looking for Malcolm.Set at the end of S3E23, Countdown.





	Dog Tags

Trip Tucker found Malcolm in one of the cargo bays, sitting on the promenade, legs dangling off the edge, head against the railing. His hands were in his lap, one hand balled into a fist. He didn’t look up when Trip closed the door. They were alone in here, and the silence was deafening.

‘Malcolm? Captain sent me looking for you.’

Malcolm turned his head, still keeping his forehead against the metal bar of the railing.

‘Is it time to go?’ He sounded as empty as he looked. He seemed tired, but not the tired that came of lack of sleep and months of constant fear. It was a tiredness that went deeper than that, an inability to accept the world as it had been. Trip had seen that tiredness in his own face, after the first attack, after he discovered what had happened to Elizabeth. Grief. Hayes.

‘No, there’s time yet.’ He sat down on the gratings, legs crossed, close enough that he could reach out and touch Malcolm if he decided to. For now, he kept his distance. ‘Are you okay?’ Malcolm made a sound, a whimpering scornful  _ hm. _

‘I’ll be able to do the mission, if that’s what you mean.’ Trip saw him clench his closed hand, and he realised that he was holding something, but he couldn’t say what. Malcolm had turned his face again, gazing out into the nothingness of the cargo bay.

They sat in silence, Malcolm not moving a muscle, Trip desperately trying to think of something to say. He hadn’t really known Hayes. Their interactions had been brief and professional. Hayes had always left once their conversations had finished, never sticking around for chit chat. He knew his name had been Hayes. He knew he had been a Major. He knew that he drove Malcolm up the wall. He knew that if only he had been a couple of seconds quicker when clearing the transporter buffer, Hayes would still have been alive.

‘It’s not your fault,’ he said at last. Malcolm huffed, his face momentarily flushed with distaste.

‘Nothing’s ever anybody’s fault,’ he replied bitterly, again clenching his fist. ‘It should have been me. I should have been the one to go.’

‘Malcolm–’ Trip reached out to touch his shoulder. Malcolm stiffened at the touch, so he let the hand drop.

‘Don’t, just – don’t.’ He sounded small and miserable, not at all like the stoic tactical officer Trip knew.

He opened his fist and Trip realised what he had been holding: a silver chain with two metal identification tags. Malcolm wrapped the chain around his hand and held the tags between his fingers, studying the text.

‘I didn’t know the MACOs issued those.’

‘They don’t,’ and Malcolm smiled, just a ghost of a grin, ‘but Hayes wanted some. He had them especially made. What Hayes wants, Hayes gets. Wanted. Got. Not that it matters now.’ He closed his eyes and moved the tags closer to his face, grazing his nose and then his lips.

All at once, Trip realised what was happening, why Malcolm sat alone in a darkened cargo bay when the world still might be destroyed. Something had happened between Malcolm and Hayes.

‘Malcolm, were you and Hayes –’ he didn’t know how to finish the sentence, embarrassed to even ask the question, nervous that he had overstepped. Malcolm smiled a little at the pause, amused at Trip’s awkwardness around anything close to impropriety. He nodded.

‘For what it’s worth, I don’t know if he liked me much. I didn’t really like him.’ He paused, corrected himself: ‘I didn’t think I liked him. And now – now I just feel –’ he stopped, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing his lips together. When he opened his eyes, Trip could see the tears that Malcolm allow himself to cry. ‘I’m so angry. I’m angry with Hoshi for being kidnapped, I’m angry with the Reptilians, I’m angry with him, I’m angry with myself.’

‘You’re not angry with me?’ Malcolm frowned.

‘Why would I be? You had nothing to do with this.’

‘Malcolm–’ for a second Trip considered lying, pretending that he  _ had  _ had nothing to do with it. But he couldn’t do that. Not to Malcolm. Not now. ‘It was my fault. He was the last one to be transported. If I hadn’t been so slow at resetting the buffer, or if I had been able to teleport three at a time and not two, then… I don’t think you’d be holding those dog tags.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that. Guess I’m angry with you, too.’ He said it without any of the anger Trip had expected. Somehow that was worse. Trip had gotten used to how irritable and vitriolic Malcolm could sometimes get, so this apathy was unnerving. Malcolm sighed, breaking the silence. ‘Before he left, he told me that he didn’t feel like an outsider on  _ Enterprise _ anymore. It’s my fault that he ever felt that way. But maybe him telling me that, maybe it at least meant that he didn’t – he didn’t hate me.’

Malcolm’s voice was thick and halting, and Trip wished he would allow himself to cry, to let the grief out rather than covering it up with self-loathing.

‘I don’t think he ever hated you,’ Trip said at last, when the silence between them grew unbearable. Malcolm shrugged.

‘Guess we’ll never know.’ He unlooped the chain from his hand and placed it around his neck. The silver was bright against his uniform. Malcolm swallowed and glanced at Trip before looking back out over the empty cargo bay. ‘Could you leave me alone? For just a few minutes. I’d like to gather my thoughts before the mission.’

‘Of course.’ Trip got to his feet and touched Malcolm’s shoulder again, and this time he allowed the touch. ‘I’ll see you on the bridge in a little while. And Malcolm, if you ever need to talk – you know where to find me.’

Malcolm didn’t look up when Trip left, walking as quietly as he could over the gratings, not wanting to infringe on Malcolm’s grief any further. He glanced over at Malcolm one last time before he opened the door, taking in how small the tactical officer seemed, hunched on the floor, another man’s identity nestled around his neck. Malcolm had never looked so lonely. He had never looked so human. He turned and let the door slide open.

Trip left. There were still Xindi to defeat.


End file.
